I’m looking forward to see what the New Year will bring.

Yet again I’ve missed out on attending CES, but will still trawl around the web trying to capture snippets on interesting announcements as they become available  - coverage is usually quite good

I think, this year could be the year of the Internet TV …

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I’m interested in separating Business calls from Personal calls and when abroad possibly using a different Sim in addition to my usual one. This low cost, basic phone would appear to fit the bill for making calls, sending/receiving texts and the occasional email. Although, if you’re looking for a smartphone with full internet capability you may need to look for something different.

The Samsung Ch@t 222 allows you to use 2 Sim cards at the same time. With both active, you only need to select which one to use when making a call or sending a text. You can set different ring tones for each Sim so so its easy to determine where your incoming call is comimg from. Another feature which I find useful is being able to read the occasional email.

Still early days, but I find it suits me well.

Full details and spec is available from the Samsung site at

http://www.samsung.com/uk/consumer/mobile-devices/mobile-phones/qwerty/GT-E2220LKAP4U

Thanks Santa.

PS.  Although, I really like this phone can you ask Apple to produce a dual Sim iPhone next time please.

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My iPad 2 was not showing (on my Mac) as a device associated with my iTunes account . On closer investigation, I appeared to have  trouble enabling the automatic download feature on the iPad using Settings…Store. Each button for Music, Books and Apps would switch off by themselves after a few seconds.

Simple fix is to Sign Out of your account on the iPad then sign back in. Buttons would then remain switched ON and the iPad correctly appeared as a device in the iTunes account on my Mac.

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The device is a tabletop computer slate that provides a 40-inch touch sensitive display. More details will be available at CES2012 and other news sites are reporting a price of $1299.

Click here to view the embedded video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dlUi3DnrzA

The company web-site is at

http://www.exopc.com/

(but is currently not showing any further detail)

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The OpenNI drivers from PrimeSense are used with the kinect.

Click here to view the embedded video.

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iOS 5 includes more than 200 new features for your iPad (1 and 2) , iPhone (3GS, 4 and 4S), or iPod touch (3rd and 4th generation). It has been available from 12th October and initial reports indicated the Apple servers were suffering from the deluge of download requests – hopefully it is better now.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Read all the details at

http://www.apple.com/ios/

In conjunction with iOS5, iCloud effectively provides you with your own hard disk space on the internet and is always available – as long as you have an internet connection, of course. It allows you to access your data from whatever device you are using and is supported for iOS devices, MACs and PCs.

5GB of free storage space is available but the storage of purchased music, apps and books doesn’t count towards your usage. There is also an option to purchase additional storage if you find yourself running out of space.

Apple Apps on your iOS devices have been integrated with iCloud including iTunes for downloading your music, Photo Stream to automatically push new photos to all devices, Documents, purchased Apps and Books, synchronised Mail, Contacts and Calendars.

An additional use of iCloud, scheduled for the future, will be iTunes Match which will let you store your entire music collection even if you haven’t purchased all the items from iTunes. At a current proposed cost of $24.99 a year, iTunes will determine which songs from your collection are already available in the iTunes store. Items which have a match will be added to your iCloud library otherwise you will have to upload a copy to your iCloud. As the iTunes store currently holds more than 20 million songs there is a good chance that your music is already in iCloud. Once this exercise is completed, you will be able to stream and store your music on any of your devices. All the music iTunes matches is played back from iCloud at 256-Kbps AAC DRM-free quality.

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http://company.neurosky.com/neurosky-press-release-haier-group-to-release-the-world%E2%80%99s-first-cloud-smart-tv-powered-by-neurosky/

As neurons in the brain interact, for example  as a result of thoughts or changes in emotional states, they generate small electrical charges which can be measured using specialist EEG (ElectroEncephalogram) equipment. NeuroSky’s mission is to make the technology available to a wider market outside of the laboratory, and they have produced the MindWave device for under $100.

Their technology can detect and convert electrical impulses generated from concentrated mental states into digital signals that can be used by electronic devices and ultimately, as suggested in this case, changing channels or adjusting the volume on a TV.

http://www.neurosky.com/

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The HMZ-T1 head mounted display features dual OLED screens that provide HD quality viewing, and integrated headphones to deliver virtual 5.1 surround sound. It’s claimed to be equivalent to watching a film on a 700 inch cinema screen

Click here to view the embedded video.

The display can be connected to a PlayStation 3 for high definition 2D and 3D gaming or a blu-ray disc player for a unique cinematic experience.

All the details are available from Sony at

http://www.sony.co.uk/hub/hmd-video-glasses

It should be available towards the end of the year – price currently not defined, but likely to be around the cost of a reasonable LED TV.

Do doubt, this will be a competitor for the Vuzix iWear.

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Windows 8 has been tagged as “Windows Re-Imagined”  and has been designed to provide better security features, faster startup, and longer battery life. It will run on a wider choice of devices and chipsets and has a  a new touch-optimized interface. Windows 8 also provides the platform to create a whole new generation of full-screen apps that are based on modern web standards and (will be) available through the new Windows Store.

Watch the keynote by Steven Sinofsky,  President of the Windows and Windows Live Division at Microsoft from

http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/BUILD/BUILD2011/KEY-0001

You can see details of what’s new in Windows 8 in the downloadable guide at

http://download.microsoft.com/download/1/E/4/1E455D53-C382-4A39-BA73-55413F183333/Windows_Developer_Preview-Windows8_guide.pdf

During the conference keynote, Microsoft announced their intention to give prototype PCs built by Samsung to 5000 lucky attendees. ( watch this bit ~1:59 into the keynote …)

The Samsung Windows 8 Developer Preview PC, (not intended for commercial release) is a touch screen tablet PC and consists of an 11.6 inch screen with a resolution of 1366 x 768 pixels, Intel Core i5 processor and 4GB of memory. It comes supplied with a stylus (or to be more precise an electromagnetic, pressure sensitive digitizer) and includes a dock and Bluetooth keyboard which allows you to use it as a more traditional “laptop” type PC.

The package includes a years 3G service with 2GB download per month, from AT&T and is bundled with a variety of sample applications and the tools necessary for building and testing your own applications.

See a video of  this device from Channel 9

http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/Mike-Angiulo-Unboxes-the-Build-Hardware-With-Us

For lesser mortals, the Windows Developer Preview software is a pre-beta version of Windows 8 for developers. You should note this is pre-release software intended for developers

These downloads include prerelease software that may change without notice. The software is provided as is, and you bear the risk of using it. It may not be stable, operate correctly or work the way the final version of the software will. It should not be used in a production environment. The features and functionality in the prerelease software may not appear in the final version. Some product features and functionality may require advanced or additional hardware, or installation of other software.

and the additional  important note that

You can’t uninstall the Windows Developer Preview. To reinstall your previous operating system, you must have restore or installation media.

More details about the Windows Developer Preview can be found at  the Windows 8 developer web-site

http://dev.windows.com

Other Links

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2011/09/13/welcome-to-windows-8-the-developer-preview.aspx

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Click here to view the embedded video.

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vbY5arqxZA)

You can read more about SolidWorks, including new features introduced in SolidWorks version 2012 on the SolidWorks Blog, available at

http://blogs.solidworks.com/solidworksblog/

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